Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
Browse the NASA APOD archive without needing the exact date first. Filter by media type and keep moving deeper into older images and videos.
Country Sky versus City Sky
Dark skies are disappearing from the world. With modernization comes artificial lighting that brightens the night. While these lights allow modern human s to see, much light is…
A Path North
What happens if you keep going north? The direction north on the Earth , the place on your horizon below the northern spin pole of the Earth -- around which other stars appear to…
NGC 1672: Barred Spiral Galaxy from Hubble
Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a modest central bar . Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672, featured…
Color the Universe
Wouldn't it be fun to color in the universe? If you think so, please accept this famous astronomical illustration as a preliminary substitute. You, your friends , your parents or…
Venus and the Sisters
After wandering about as far from the Sun on the sky as Venus can get, the brilliant evening star is crossing paths with the sister stars of the Pleiades cluster. Look west after…
The Traffic in Taurus
There's a traffic jam in Taurus lately. On April 1, this celestial frame from slightly hazy skies over Tapiobicske, Hungary recorded an impressive pile up toward the zodiacal…
Venus and the Pleiades in April
Venus is currently the brilliant evening star. Shared around world , in tonight's sky Venus will begin to wander across the face of the lovely Pleiades star cluster. This digital…
Asteroid or Potato?
Is this asteroid Arrokoth or a potato? Perhaps, after all the data was beamed back to Earth from NASA's robotic New Horizons spacecraft , the featured high resolution image of…
The Galactic Center from Radio to X-ray
In how many ways does the center of our Galaxy glow? This enigmatic region, about 26,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Archer ( Sagittarius ), glows in every…
The Colors of Saturn from Cassini
What creates Saturn's colors? The featured picture of Saturn only slightly exaggerates what a human would see if hovering close to the giant ringed world. The image was taken in…
A 212-Hour Exposure of Orion
The constellation of Orion is much more than three stars in a row. It is a direction in space that is rich with impressive nebulas. To better appreciate this well-known swath of…
Stars Trail over Ragusa
In trying times, stars still trail in the night . Taken on March 14, this night skyscape was made by combining 230 exposures each 15 seconds long to follow the stars' circular…
A Little Drop of Galaxy
A drop of water seems to hold an entire galaxy in this creative macro-astrophotograph . In the imaginative work of cosmic nature photography a close-up lens was used to image a…
Andromeda Station
This surreal picture isn't from a special effects sci-fi movie. It is a digital composite of frames of the real Andromeda Galaxy , also known as M31, rising over a real mountain.…
Star Forming Region S106
Massive star IRS 4 is beginning to spread its wings. Born only about 100,000 years ago, material streaming out from this newborn star has formed the nebula dubbed Sharpless 2-106…
A Black Hole Disrupts a Passing Star
What happens to a star that goes near a black hole? If the star directly impacts a massive black hole , then the star falls in completely -- and everything vanishes. More likely ,…
From the Pleiades to the Eridanus Loop
If you stare at an interesting patch of sky long enough, will it look different? In the case of Pleiades and Hyades star clusters -- and surrounding regions -- the answer is: yes,…
Comet ATLAS and the Mighty Galaxies
Comet ATLAS C/2019 Y4 was discovered by the NASA funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System , the last comet discovery reported in 2019. Now growing brighter in northern…
Morning, Planets, Moon and Montreal
Dawn's early light came to Montreal, northern planet Earth, on March 18, the day before the vernal equinox . At the end of that nearly equal night the Moon stands above a dense…
M13: The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules
In 1716 , English astronomer Edmond Halley noted, “This is but a little Patch, but it shews itself to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent.” Of course, M13 is…
Anticrepuscular Rays over Florida
What's happening behind those clouds? Although the scene may appear somehow supernatural , nothing more unusual is occurring than a Sun setting on the other side of the sky.…
M77: Spiral Galaxy with an Active Center
What's happening in the center of nearby spiral galaxy M77? The face-on galaxy lies a mere 47 million light-years away toward the constellation of the Sea Monster ( Cetus ). At…
A Moon Dressed Like Saturn
Why does Saturn appear so big? It doesn't -- what is pictured are foreground clouds on Earth crossing in front of the Moon . The Moon shows a slight crescent phase with most of…
Moonrise and Mountain Shadow
What phase of the Moon is 3.14 radians from the Sun? The Full Moon, of course. Even though the Moon might look full for several days, the Moon is truly at its full phase when it…
Viewing discoveries from 8 April 2020 through 14 March 2020.